Two people, including an employee of HM Revenue and Customs, have been arrested by detectives investigating alleged corrupt payments to public officials by journalists.

A 50-year-old man was held on Tuesday morning suspicion of misconduct in a public office by officers from Operation Elveden, the Metropolitan police investigation into suspected illegal payments.

Scotland Yard said a 43-year-old woman was also arrested at the address in north-west London. She was held on suspicion of aiding and abetting misconduct in a public office and money-laundering offences.

The pair were arrested at their home at 6am and are being questioned at a central London police station.

A total of 29 people have now been arrested since last July as part of Operation Elveden, which is linked to the Metropolitan Police's continuing phone-hacking investigation, Operation Weeting.

Scotland Yard said in a statement: "Today's arrests are the result of information provided to police by News Corporation's management standards committee.

"They relate to suspected payments to a public official and are not about seeking journalists to reveal confidential sources in relation to information that has been obtained legitimately."

The management standards committee was set up in the wake of the phone-hacking scandal that led to the closure of the News of the World last July.

The MSC is carrying out internal investigations relating to Rupert Murdoch's remaining UK papers – the Sun, The Times and the Sunday Times – and is working closely with the detectives investigating alleged phone hacking and corrupt payments to police and other public officials.

Murdoch said that the review of the Times and Sunday Times had found no evidence of illegal conduct other than a single incident reported months ago.

This is understood to be a reference to the former Times journalist, Patrick Foster, who hacked the email of the police blogger NightJack in May 2009.

The News Corp founder added that the MSC had completed its review of the Sun but made no reference to its findings.

Twelve current and former Sun journalists have been arrested over alleged illegal payments to public officials after information passed by the MSC to Scotland Yard.

• To contact the MediaGuardian news desk email editor@mediatheguardian.com or phone 020 3353 3857. For all other inquiries please call the main Guardian switchboard on 020 3353 2000. If you are writing a comment for publication, please mark clearly "for publication".

• To get the latest media news to your desktop or mobile, follow MediaGuardian on Twitter and Facebook.